If you pull up the first-half player rankings of all batters in Yahoo! Fantasy Baseball today, you’ll see that the current no. 1 overall player heading into the All-Star break is none other than Pittsburgh Pirates OFer Andrew McCutchen.

Cutch hit two home runs on Sunday and went 3-for-5 at the plate against the Giants. His current 5×5 stat line reads .362/18/60/58/14.

On Sunday, Cutch was named as a replacement participant in the 2012 Home Run Derby to replace Giancarlo Stanton, who injured his knee on Saturday and will be out for 4-to-6 weeks.

Despite being the no. 1 overall fantasy baseballer heading into the break, and also despite having only one less home run than Stanton heading into the break, McCutchen’s current odds to win tonight’s Home Run Derby still stand at 8-1. At post time, he’s officially the stand alone longshot, according to our friends at Oddsmaker.com.

As we typically do for our projected winner (which is still definitely Mark Trumbo of the Angels), we have included Cutch’s 2012 home run scatter plot so you can see how his home run total would have been effected by him playing at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City, the host for this week’s All-Star festivities.

If you fancy putting a few dollars down on a longshot just to see how it works out, there are certainly worse long shot bets than McCutchen in tonight’s Derby. 55% of his home runs have come at home, but only two of them wouldn’t have made it out of Kauffman Stadium based on its dimensions. He’s never played a game in Kauffman Stadium during his MLB career.

For those considering making a friendly wager on McCutchen tonight, throw down with cautious confidence. We obviously don’t like him to win it all, but there are less sure thing bets in tonight’s field.

How will McCutchen entering the Home Run Derby effect his fantasy baseball value in a positive/negative way down the stretch? Are you going to trade him simply because his value has never been higher AND he’s in the competition? Let us know.

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